It is impossible not to both understand and agree with you sir, but I still believe that we, Americans, are like a big family. We sometimes fight amongst ourselves but God help an outsider that attacks one of our family members.
I sincerely believe that if push came to shove the majority of the members on this forum would react the same way their ancestors did--men and women--and I would like to believe the majority of Americans would as well.
While here, I want to take the time to thank all the posters on this thread as many of their posts stirred up a memory or two in my memory bank. And some of those memories might not be what you would expect. Besides being proud to be an American when reading all the posts , there were also ------
jrabq---I remember the Bobby Socks. Straight Arrow--I had an aunt an uncle with that car----Ben, the women feeding the men on the trains as they headed for the coast -----D-Walt, the only plane in WW2 without a picture or a name painted in it ( one hollywood star was on a few )----- and several others--- brought back so many memories, gentlemen
Greatest Generation indeed, but I believe if America was attacked today, the men and women on this forum, as well as men and women all across America, would not hesitate to step up and be counted.
Wonderful thread and posts ! Thank you !
The juxtaposition in attitudes regarding intervening in the conflicts in China & Europe from most Americans from December 6th to December 7th was something to watch. Leading up to this, America was bitterly divided, with Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden, Roosevelt quietly pushing America to war through lend-lease and other programs, furtive diplomacy with Japan, etc.
It all reminds me of one of my favorite poems (especially the very last stanza), Ulysses from Tennyson:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all,—
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle,
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
